Director Hired for Texas Office of Capital Writs

"Chief hired for state public defense office," is the title of Lise Olsen's report in today's Houston Chronicle.

Texas has hired an experienced California attorney to run its first-ever public defense office for death row appeals known as state writs of habeas corpus — considered a death row defendant's best opportunity to raise final arguments about mistakes, unheard innocence claims or misconduct.

Brad D. Levenson, now a deputy federal public defender based in Los Angeles, will get a $1 million annual budget and small team of team of lawyers to handle a dozen or more new death cases each year across the Lone Star State.

The office was created by the Texas Legislature after a series of scandals generated by ill-prepared and mostly poorly-paid death row defense lawyers assigned to handle writs of habeas corpus across Texas. Some filed poorly written documents filled with typos, factual errors and photocopied cookie cutter arguments. Others repeatedly blew important deadlines – forfeiting the rights of their clients to have any arguments considered by either state or federal courts before executions.

Only seven candidates applied for the job, said Phil Wischkaemper, an attorney who was one of five members of a special state selection committee that both included judges and defense attorneys.

And:

Wischkaemper said the selection committee unanimously supported Levenson: "We thought he was very well-qualified - even though he doesn't have the Texas experience," he said. Managing the complex investigations that can result in successful writs of habeas corpus is a skill that translates well across state lines, he said.

"The key is looking under every rock and every bush and finding out what the lawyers at trial might have missed because of negligence or because it was hidden from him purposefully," said Wischkaemper.

In an interview, Levenson promised his new office would take an aggressive approach to re-investigating all capital cases to make sure that men and women sentenced to death in Texas receive "high quality" representation and that relevant legal arguments get presented to the courts before executions occur. Levenson said his aim was to "represent indigent defendants as if they had private attorneys."

Earlier coverage of the office begins with this post.